Last Slip Coach at Bicester North

[LMS2968]

I've been sent by my cousin these four photos. Her Dad, and my uncle, was Ted Dean. She says:

 

I have found the photos of Dad doing the last slip coach at Bicester North, attached. The first one he has written on the back is "5.10pm express Paddington before departure on final run for slipping last coach at Bicester, August 1960."
The rest are of Dad at Bicester North - he has written "Guard W. James, Shunter E. Dean, Photographer J. Searson".

 

 

 

 

 

Hope that they are of interest.

 

[chrisf]

They certainly are!  Thank you for posting them.  

 

I think that those taken at Bicester North were not on the last day but some time previously, perhaps in August 1960.  The last run was on 9th September 1960.  The last slip coach was W7374W and on that fateful occasion two ordinary coaches were attached to it - ex-LNER corridor second E1390E  and BR Mk 1 corridor composite W15121.  These are clearly visible in the Paddington shot.

 

As the photos of Ted Dean at Bicester show, the slip portion came to rest on the down centre road at Bicester North.  Waiting for it at the down platform would be the 4.34 pm Paddington - Banbury, normally comprising a Castle and six coaches.  The Castle would be uncoupled, draw forward and set back to be coupled to the slip.  It would then draw forward and set back on to its train. 

 

Chris

[D826]

There's a superb transaccord recording of the slip portion at Bicester. Sounds amazing to hear the through train come thundering through and as it progresses and the exhaust beat recedes into the distance before you hear the slip portion approach gliding over the rail joints before coming to a rest centre road.

 

Superb historic pictures - thanks for posting. The cut off route through Haddenham and Bicester must have seen something to behold in the late 50s.

 

Kind regards

Matt W

Edited May 15, 2017 by D826

[AberdeenBill]

Fantastic shots.   Did the 'gong' sound continuously or did the guard 'ping' it as needed to warn of the slip's approach?

 

Bill

[The Johnster]

AFAIK it was 'pinged', operated by a foot treadle in the same way as the ones on GW designed auto trailers.  There is a particular safety issue with slip working, in that a per. way gang or anyone else about the tracks would naturally return to whatever they were doing after the main train had passed, unaware that a slip portion was close behind, rapidly and silently bearing down on them; the gong was not for decoration!

[eastglosmog]

Very interesting. The last slip coach run on 9th September 1960 was filmed by Pat Whitehouse and John Adams for the "Railway Roundabout" programme.  The film is now in the possession of the NRM and available on DVD. Just been looking at it and your 3 photos at Bicester North are in accord with what is shown in the programme which only shows one coach being slipped.

[dibber25]

I'm doing research on slip coaches for Model Rail at present, having just finished a Hornby Hawksworth conversion. There seems to be several claimants to the last slip at Bicester. I, too, have seen the Railway Roundabout piece. It's on Youtube. I have, too, a Colour-Rail shot which shows a maroon-liveried Hawksworth slip, also claiming to be the last Bicester...... (CJL)

[chrisf]

What I posted at #2 above came from the Railway Observer for October 1960.  The photo in #1 showing the three coach slip portion at Paddington may well support it.

 

Chris

[eastglosmog]

Looks like there could have been as many last slip coaches to Bicester as there were last broad gauge trains!

Edited May 18, 2017 by eastglosmog

[dibber25]

Looks like there could have been as many last slip coaches to Bicester as there were last broad gauge trains!

Not quite as many as people whose Grandad was an engine driver and drove the Flying Scotsman (he was usually based at Truro or Pontypool Road, too!)

[chrisf]

Looking again at the Paddington photograph, it is clear that the chocolate and cream slip is attached to a Thompson coach.  What is not clear is the direction in which the picture is looking.  Is it towards the country end or the concourse?  If the former, the Thompson coach is part of the main train and not part of the slip portion as I have suggested at #2.  If it was taken on the last day, the inscription "August 1960" on the back is not right. 

 

As for the Railway Roundabout footage, do we know that it was actually taken on the last day?  I ask this because some RR features were necessarily shot on different days - the piece on the Bristolian comes to mind, featuring several different locos.  As for the Colour-Rail slide, which of us has not found howlers in the catalogue?  Ron White did a tremendous job in identifying subjects and locations despite less than perfect records left by the photographers but even he did not always get it right and made good use of talks at railway societies to garner corrective information.  

 

Who would be an historian ...

 

Chris 

[Trog]

Not quite as many as people whose Grandad was an engine driver and drove the Flying Scotsman (he was usually based at Truro or Pontypool Road, too!)

 

While it is obvious that there is over reporting of Flying Scotsman driving, could there perhaps have been more drivers who were at least on that loco than we might first think.

 

The railway has always been something that rather takes over your life, would driver C. Sparrow from Kings Cross on holiday in Wales perhaps pop into the local station during the holiday or talk to the local train crew on arrival, perhaps sharing a cup of tea with Jones the steam on the footplate while admiring his engine. Later Mr Jones visiting his aunt in the big city might drop in at Kings Cross to see how they did things there, sharing a can of tea with his acquaintance driver Sparrow on a mighty A3 Pacific. Even drivers are only human and both Drivers Jones and Sparrow might tend to chose to look over/show off a famous loco if one was on shed, So Flying Scotsman might tend to host more such visits than a vanilla engine.

 

Years later Mr Jones tells his young grandson the future Jones the DMU about being in the cab of Flying Scotsman at Kings Cross. The name Flying Scotsman is very memorable so it is that name that is remembered rather than his ride on Henry on the summer he went to the Isle of Man or the 0-4-0 he normally drove, and a family legend is born.

[Zomboid]

Was FS particularly famous before preservation? Maybe more than other A3s because of the name, but it's not exactly Mallard, is it?

Way off topic, sorry.

[dibber25]

I have a couple of BR poster timetables for Paddington that were never pasted up. They are too big to photograph the whole thing but I just noticed this. I wonder how many traveller actually knew what 'slip' meant? (CJL)